We want to make the Chamber better by bringing in a variety of new businesses while keeping the old. This is the answer the Star-Courier received from the relatively new Executive Director, Marisa Flanagan.
Not long after arriving in Crosby in early January I visited the Chamber and met, Marisa for the first time. When I left last spring my friend for the past few years, Mitzi Plum, was in that position and she chose to move on in mid-2007. From my view she served the Chamber well during her tenure. I wish her well.
Now it is Marisas turn. Ive been there three times during this visit and she always provides me with a welcome smile as I enter the door. She views the Chamber as a continuing growth organization, just as is the Crosby-Huffman community. She backed that up by telling me the Chamber grew by 30 members in 2007 and the growth is continuing in 2008.
Marisa moved to her current position last June after spending some of her working life in real estate. She lives in Crosby with husband, Joseph, and four off-spring. There is no doubt Marisa will continue to represent the Crosby-Huffman Chamber of Commerce well in the future.
Returning to the previously mentioned, Mitzi Plum, one could easily say she was the one responsible for this column in the Star-Courier. I had asked her how I might make contact with someone at the paper to write a couple of columns expressing what a fine feeling this writer had for Crosby since I first set eyes on the area back in May 2001.
She introduced me to Publisher Gil Hoffman following a Chamber meeting a few weeks later who not only agreed to publish those two columns but invited me to write others. The rest is history.
Mitzi was a great help to me through my visits to her office when I was here and by e-mail conversations at other times. Many of my column subjects and other story subjects were generated by my discussions with her. If she didnt have the information I wanted she always knew who would. I miss seeing her smiling face at the office.
By the way, in case you didnt know, the old chamber building, next to the Crosby Fairgrounds, was given away and moved to a site along U.S. 90 where it now serves as offices for other businesses. The building was located on property not owned by the chamber and had to be moved when it ceased to be used for that purpose. Giving it away was a better deal for the chamber than being faced with the cost of tearing it down.
Such are the people, places, and things that have touched my life in my West Virginia home!
